'Delusional Minority' Driving GOP on Benghazi, David Plouffe Says

There was "no conspiracy" behind the White House's decision not to release an internal email related to Benghazi until this week, but a "very loud, delusional minority" is driving the Republican Party to politicize the issue, former Obama White House senior adviser David Plouffe said today.

"I think lawyers have spoken to this and it's out now," Plouffe, an ABC News contributor, said today on the "This Week" roundtable. "What Benghazi was was a tragedy. What we need to do is figure out how to prevent it from happening again and to try and hold those accountable as we did [Osama] bin Laden. It took a while, but after 11 years we did."

Republicans have called the newly released email a "smoking gun," with House Speaker John Boehner on Friday calling for a select committee to investigate the attack.

The email message deals with preparations for then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice's first round of Sunday morning interviews after the Benghazi attack. It lists as a "goal" for the interviews "to show that these protests were rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

ABC News contributor and syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham criticized the administration for considering politics after the tragedy.

"What we know now from the email is that from the beginning, the administration saw Benghazi as a political problem," Ingraham said on "This Week."

"First of all, we have to not forget we have four dead Americans, the U.S. ambassadors' body was dragged through the streets," she continued. "It was beyond heartbreaking and beyond infuriating. We still have no one in custody, we have an arrest warrant out, and no one in custody, and in the immediate aftermath, the response was to go political."

Plouffe countered that Republicans are guilty of attempting to use the attack for political gain.

"The USS Cole bombing, 17 of our sailors died weeks before the 2000 election. What did then Governor [George w.] Bush say? It's time for a nation to speak as one voice," Plouffe said. "This has been politicized like we've never seen before and I think what's happening, Richard Nixon talked about a silent majority back in 1968, there's a very loud, delusional minority that's driving our politics, that's in control of the Republican Party."